


As One- Nirvana

by Mildly_Archaic



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Star Wars - All Media Types, Starbound (Video Game), Stardew Valley (Video Game), Steven Universe (Cartoon), Subnautica (Video Game)
Genre: Most of the fandoms are just for one character tbh, Only mildly Star Wars, This will get bigger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 15:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13321440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildly_Archaic/pseuds/Mildly_Archaic
Summary: Ten years after his arrival on the planet, a shipwrecked survivor is awakened in the night by another ship crash landing nearby. Will he -and his friends- be able to rescue the crew before they meet the same fate as the rest of the planet's victims?The first work in a sweeping anthology-type thing, hopefully. This is my first time publishing fanwork, so honestly this is as much for my own practice as it is anything else. I hope you enjoy!





	As One- Nirvana

The explosion was bone-shaking, even from fifteen kilometers down

In his shelter, high above the crashing waves, he heard the blast that tore the ship apart, and by the time he made it to the window, there was nothing visible but a streak of fire, carving its way through the star-filled sky. He stared in shock, unable to tell if it was a ship or an meteorite- at least, until its lifepods launched. The pair of sleek metal tubes, wreathed in flame, escaped the wreckage and hurtled downwards, plunging into the sea to his east.

He turned from the window and ran. By the time he reached the launch bay, the remains of the ship impacted the water and all but disintegrated. By the time he powered up his submarine, the floodlights blazing in the black water, the lifepods’ floatation devices had failed and they’d begun to sink. As he turned to his console on the wall and began flipping switches, he prayed he wouldn’t be too late.

* * *

In a field, far far away from the crashing ship and the darkened ocean, a young woman was lying in the grass. Clouds drifted lazily by above. The grass gently tickled her caramel-skinned face. Somewhere nearby, she smelled raspberries.

A voice called her name and she sat up. A quartet of figures was approaching from the woods. She recognized them instantly- her friends. Her family. As she stood to greet them, she heard a distant groan, like the sound of metal rending. The newcomers’ expressions quickly turned to horror, and they broke into a run towards her, pointing frantically. She followed their gaze, already knowing what she would see.

Gone was the placid sky and idyllic meadow. In their place, a vortex of flames erupted, pulling her in. She had just enough time to turn back towards her comrades before the flames were upon her and they were gone. Tossed by the flames and the roar of destruction, she frantically sought shelter for only a few seconds before it all vanished. Suddenly, she found herself underwater, sinking further and further into a black abyss. No matter how much she struggled and fought and swam, the light of the surface pulled away from her. She opened her mouth to scream, but instead she heard a voice that wasn’t hers. It was distant and desperate, but it called to her.

_“Just hold on, please hold on.”_

A hand reached down from the surface.

And then, Maru snapped awake with a scream. She clutched her throat and looked around, gasping for breath. Instead of an ocean, she found herself in a small, narrow chamber- the lifepod from the Nihil Prius. Slumping backwards into her wall-mounted seat, she closed her eyes and took a few heavy breaths. It wasn’t a dream, then. Their ship had crashed after all.

As she opened her eyes, she found GUARDIAN standing over her. “Are you alright, Ms Fairfield?” He asked, kneeling and placing one metallic hand on her shoulder.

She looked up into his sleek, tan head and nodded. “I’m not hurt. Where are we?”

It was the third and final passenger of the lifepod who answered. “Underwater. I managed to run one scan before we launched, and there’s barely a single landmass on this planet worth calling an island.” Bolin slumped against the wall, fear clouding his normally cheerful countenance. “What do we do now?"  
GUARDIAN stood and turned, addressing both his human companions. “We find a way to get ourselves to safety, and we establish contact with the other pod.”

“Other pod… so the others made it out too?” Maru asked, hitting the switch to free her from the crash harness. As she dropped to her feet, she noticed that the pod was tilted at a dangerous angle, the floor practically forming a sheer wall at her side.

Bolin nodded. “We got the OK signal from their pod’s beacon, three life signs aboard. We just don’t have real radio contact. I think ours is busted”

GUARDIAN turned. “In fact, we were hoping you could help us with that, Ms Fairfield, given your inclination with the mechanical.”

The young woman nodded, trying to hold her fear in check. “I never did get the chance to check these out, but they can’t be too different from the comms on the ship.” She patted her coveralls until she found the proper pocket, fishing out what tools she had. As Maru stood over the radio -given the pod’s tilt, it was on the floor- the other two moved to give her space.

“In the meantime, Bolin,” continued the droid, turning to face the seated human. “Let’s try to get a sense of where we are.” Bolin nodded and closed his eyes, reaching out with his earthbending powers in search of nearby land. At the same time, GUARDIAN reached a hand out and called upon the Force, seeking any minds nearby he could call for.

In only a short trio of minutes, Maru had the radio working. The others gathered around as she fiddled with the frequencies, finally dialing in on that of the other lifepod. “Guys?” She called into the static-laden channel. “Guys, can you hear me?”

It took several terrifying seconds, but finally a familiar drawl came through the radio. “Yeah, pard, we got’cha.”

“Aldebaran! You guys okay?”

“Yup. Lapis is tryin’ to control the water to get us topside again, and Asami’s workin’ on the long-range distress signal.” As Aldebaran mentioned their names, both women called a quick ‘hello’ or ‘hey’ into the radio, before the Novakid continued. “You folks doin’ alright down there?”

Maru answered quickly. “Yeah, yeah we’re all okay. What do you mean ‘down there’? I thought you guys said you weren’t at the surface yet.”

This time, Lapis replied, her voice tinged with panic. Maru only then remembered that Lapis was petrified of the ocean. “No, we aren’t. Our pod is on a ledge on the rock wall, and yours is below. We’re at, like, the edge of a continental shelf or something. We can just see you out the hatch, maybe... a hundred meters down? You have to be careful- it looks like you’re hanging out over a cliff. I don’t know what’s down there, but it doesn’t look like a small drop.”

The three inhabitants of the lower pod all looked at one another, then around their confined chamber. Now filled with caution, Bolin moved towards the hatch, whose transparent face was aimed, as best they could tell, over the edge of the cliff. He peeked out into the murky water for a few seconds before slowly muttering, “Yeah… I don’t see the bottom Or anything.”

Maru turned back to the radio. “Can you tell how deep you are?” As Aldebaran responded, Bolin kept watching out the porthole. Suddenly, in the blackness outside, a soft light glittered. He stared intently, until it came again; a horizontal stripe of blue light, slowly growing larger. Or getting closer. Then two more appeared. Then five.

Bolin turned to the others and called out, “I hate to interrupt, but something is coming!”

Maru could feel the color drain from her face. “This planet has life on it?”

GUARDIAN made a soft noise as he reached out mentally. “Yes. I-” He froze. His next statement came out in a soft whisper. “We made them angry.”

The next instant, their pod was rocked by an impact that launched the side nearer the ledge upwards, flipping the pod lengthwise and sending its occupants sprawling. A sound like a tortured roar bombarded their ears from outside, and for just a moment, the porthole was filled with light blue flesh.

As the pod impacted the ground again, completing its flip, the lights went out.

The only source of illumination were the streaks of light reaching them from the water outside. On the radio, Asami yelled, “Guys? Come in, you still there?”

Before Maru could answer, she heard another voice- the one from her dream. It was louder now, much closer, but its refrain was the same. _“Just hold on, please hold on.”_

She heard Aldebaran yell for cover as a crashing came over the radio- the other pod had been hit too. The radio went silent save for static. A chorus of roars threatened to split her mind- until she heard something else. This new sound was quieter, by far, than the bestial yells, but to her it was unmistakable- mechanical clattering. Fighting her way up the sloped pod, she gripped the hatch and stared out the porthole. It was suddenly lit up like midday outside, from what she couldn’t tell. But the light illuminated a scene of battle.

A pack of long, eel-like creatures with translucent blue skin- their attackers, no doubt- swarmed and writhed in the waters outside. In the midst of them, a squat, bipedal figure was moving. It was clearly mechanical, a suit of some kind, but it flowed with grace amongst its assailants, wreaking death wherever it went. A cord launched from it to grasp the cliff wall, and in reeling itself in, it grabbed hold of one of the sea monsters and slammed it against the stone. As three more closed in, a weapon of some kind- a drill?- sprouted from one metal arm and swung in an arc, cutting a pair of the beasts in half. The third slammed against the mechanical figure, its wicked mouth grasping at the smooth glass windshield. The next instant, it was gone as a smaller creature, shaped vaguely like it but adorned in red and white and with a quartet of talon-like mandibles extending around its head, slammed into it.

The red creature wrestled its target to the sloped ground of the wide ledge, biting at it savagely until it finally managed to sink its claws into the blue flesh of its spine. The blue creature writhed and then went still, as its attacker disengaged and returned to the side of the suited figure. It received a gentle pat on the head for its rescue. As they both turned, another trio of the blue creatures appeared- only to be suddenly scattered in a blinding blast of electricity. None seemed to have been killed, but they were gone, as far as Maru could tell.

Silence had returned to the ocean. The suited figure seemed to get its bearings before looking up, waving its drill arm at something outside of Maru’s field of view. Then it began to walk towards her pod, silt being thrown up around its feet with each weighty stomp. When it finally reached her vantage point, Maru could just make out a humanoid silhouette through its curved windshield. She couldn’t see its face, but somehow, she knew.

This was the voice she had heard. Even as she realized as much, it spoke again.

_“Are you alright?”_

Maru spoke the first words of her reply aloud, before she stopped. The others were too distracted fiddling with the radio to notice her, but neither seemed to have heard the voice. So it was in her head. Trying not to think about how ridiculous it sounded, she thought back at the figure.

_“Yes. What were those things?”_

_“Ghosts. More will be back, we should go.”_

Maru frowned. _“How? We’re stuck down here. Can that suit lift two pods?”_

The voice seemed to chuckle slightly. _“It doesn’t have to.”_ Though Maru could still hear it, the voice now seemed directed elsewhere, as if talking to someone nearby. _“All ready up there, Gamma?”_

No response reached Maru, but one must have answered the voice, for a moment later the suit stepped backwards, and a cable appeared outside the porthole. It took the figure a moment, with its indexterous hands, to attach it, but a moment later the work was done. The suit made a circular motion with its drill arm and, with a jerk, the pod began to ascend.

By then, Bolin and GUARDIAN had arrived at the dark-skinned woman’s side. “So… that’s the good guys?” Bolin asked, eyeing up the sleek white mech.

Maru took a moment to respond, so enamored was she with watching the upper side of the porthole, trying to get a view of their destination. “Yeah, Bolin. I think so.”

* * *

The Survivor watched as the lower pod slowly rose. He turned his gaze upward, to its destination- the open bay doors of his submarine, the Wayfarer. Gamma was aboard. He’d get the inhabitants of the pod to the surface. In the meantime, the Survivor turned his attention to the other escape vehicle, which rested on another outcropping a ways up the cliff.

He began to climb quickly, using his PRAWN suit’s grappling hook and jump jets in tandem. The climb wasn’t particularly dangerous, but he still felt on edge. The Ghosts had been getting more common in this area of the abyss as of late, which could only mean one thing- a broodlord was in the area. The last time one had come this close to home, the Ghosts had practically overwhelmed the caldera he called home. It had been a fierce fight to hold them off, and had cost a whole pack of Reapers their lives- as well as costing Gizmo her eye.

For now, though, the priority was to get these people back to his dwelling as fast as possible. There, at least, the Ghosts couldn’t touch them.

A horrific roar resounded below him, and the Survivor felt his heart sink. He turned, just in time to watch rows of lights appear in the dark- easily a dozen. The Ghosts were back.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sammy circle nervously, her mandibles still soaked in the yellow blood of the last pack. Out of the corner of his mind, he heard Gamma warn that the Wayfarer’s electric defenses were still charging. The Survivor gave it a moment’s thought before he sighed and called out, through his mind, to their backup.

_“Gizmo? We need your help.”_

In seconds, she was in his mind. _“I am here.”_ At the same moment, a roar drowned out that of the Ghosts, as the rocks his suit was gripping to trembled. He continued to climb. He had to get the second pod before Gizmo arrived- she tended not to leave much behind when she helped fight.

He locked his drill arm, deactivated, between two bars on the exterior of the lifepod. It was slow going, but his suit lifted the craft slowly and he began to climb again. The temperature gauge on his windshield flared suddenly, as Gizmo’s roar echoed through the water again. He had no choice now but to jump.

His jump jets carried him about halfway to the Wayfarer, close enough to latch on with the grapple. As he ascended swiftly, pod in tow, the cliff face exploded in a shower of rocks and steam. Even without scanning, he could feel the woman he’d been talking to gasp as Gizmo swiftly emerged from the avalanche, rocks deflecting easily off of her green hide. Her face, plated in gleaming metal, opened into another roar as superheated steam erupted from her mouth.

The Sea Dragon had arrived.


End file.
